I guess u should run 'top' for a while and notice if anything is eating plenty of CPU or RAM and then let users here know about it so they can help better
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wisemonkeyNov 4 '11 at 21:57

Are you hearing the fan (if any) being used?
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Danny StapleNov 4 '11 at 23:04

Do you have lm-sensors installed and can you try running sensors-detect? And do you run Natty or Oneiric?
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elmichaNov 4 '11 at 23:13

I have some sort of problem and saw that adobe flash is making my acer laptop crashing due to getting to hot.
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RensNov 5 '11 at 9:19

1

I have the same issue and have been told that there is an issue with the Linux kernel when using Intel processors. Hope they solve it by 12.04 because I stuck with Windows 7 right now. Ubuntu is just too hot to use in 11.10
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MysterioNov 5 '11 at 14:17

The overheating problem could happen due to the graphics card. Under Windows there is the so called Optimus technology, when you don't play games the laptop just uses the integrated Intel HD for the simple stuff.

I believe that Ubuntu doesn't have that kind of technology yet so it uses the graphics card all the time. What you could do to solve your problem is find a program that acts like Nvidia Pptimus technology.

I've seen a lot of discussion on Bumblebee. I've yet to buy a laptop with Optimus yet because of this reason. The main issue with Bumblebee (from my last time researching it) is that it runs 100% on Intel unless explicitly invoked to use nVidia. So, if you wanted to run a program with the nVidia card, you'd have to do something like '[bumblebee command] alien-arena'
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GithlarOct 13 '12 at 5:54